The Espy scandal is minor compared with the way the USDA has favored the poultry industry

The good news about chicken is that thanks to modern processing techniques, it costs only about a third of what it did two decades ago. The bad news is that an uncooked chicken has become one of the most dangerous items in the American home. At least 60% of U.S. poultry is contaminated with salmonella, camphylobacter or other micro-organisms that spread throughout the birds from slaughter to packaging, a process that has sped up dramatically in the past 20 years. Each year at least 6.5 million and possibly as many as 80 million people get sick from chicken; the precise figure...